[1.3.1 <= KSP <= 1.12.5] KAX - Kerbal Aircraft Expansion KAX — Under Lisias' Management — v2.8.1.1 [2024-0704]

[Lisias]

39 minutes ago, CloudyMN1979 said:

I can't find any part images.  Is there an imgur album?

It's a debt of mine that will be paid when I manage to get KAX on the focus on my activities. :-)

On the mean time, there're some albums and screenshots from the previous maintainers that I prefer not to directly link on the OP as is their work, not mine.

You will find images on the following links:

https://kerbal.curseforge.com/projects/kerbal-aircraft-expansion-kax/images

https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/155448-122-kerbal-aircraft-expansion-kax-v264/&amp;

But google, currently, does a better job than I could do,  so use this link!

Edited May 20, 2019 by Lisias
update google link

[OPBlue]

Ok, i think i confused this mod for airplane plus XD, sorry about the confusion if there was any. So here's the updated plans for KWX.

1. Tail Gunner cockpit (there is already the desired tail for it.).

2. (maybe) bomb bay with a lowering rack for bombs.

3. Turrets (so your bombers can protect themselves in style!).

4. A.O.D (Angel Of Death) deployment bay or attachment.

5. (possibly) The "No One Can Kill Me, Only I Can Kill Me!" bomb if you wanna explode rather than smash into the ground.

Also KWX is not confirmed because I JUST started learning how to make Add'on's, So don't expect hearing about it being confirmed for a while because it may not happen.

Edited May 26, 2019 by OPBlue
Grammatical errors and needing to add an exclamation mark to the bomb name.

[kcs123]

52 minutes ago, OPBlue said:

Ok, i think i confused this mod for airplane plus XD, sorry about the confusion if there was any. So here's the updated plans for KWX.

1. Tail Gunner cockpit (there is already the desired tail for it.). 

2. (maybe) bomb bay with a lowering rack for bombs.

3. Turrets (so your bombers can protect themselves in style!).

4. A.O.D (Angel Of Death) deployment bay or attachment.

5. (possibly) The "No One Can Kill Me, Only I Can Kill Me!" bomb if you wanna explode rather than smash into the ground.

Also KWX is not confirmed because I JUST started learning how to make Add'on's, So don't expect hearing about it being confirmed for a while because it may not happen.

Only thing that maybe "fit" to KAX mod is WWII and post WWII era of parts. But all of them have no good use without BD Armory mod. Don't get me wrong, your ideas are good for users that use BD ARmory mod, but for others that don't use BD Aarmory any of those enumerated parts does not exactly fit within style of other KAX parts.

Your idea of part list might be more useful as part of BD Armory itself, rather than separate mod. IIRC, there was also some additional mod for BD Armory with extra parts, WWII era weapons and such, can't recall if there was cockpits and similar parts. Sorry, can't recall name of mod and if it is still in development or not.

Just my opinion on this, since I'm not the one who maintain KAX, last call is from maintainer, his own free time and opinion is it worth to do it or not.

[OPBlue]

I am planning to do WW1 and WW2 weapons in the add'on and It will be a separate mod using BDArmory. Also these are just ideas and they aren't final. Also 1-4 are all things that were around at those times.

10 minutes ago, kcs123 said:

Just my opinion on this, since I'm not the one who maintain KAX, last call is from maintainer, his own free time and opinion is it worth to do it or not.

I have been talking to him about this, and he is helping me learn about the proper details and tools to help me.

Edited May 26, 2019 by OPBlue
Adding more stuff

[Lisias]

42 minutes ago, kcs123 said:

(cut by me)

Just my opinion on this

I agree, you have some solid arguments.

But I'm also happy with @OPBlue suggestions, and for the ones that doesn't fits on KAX, I'm cooking a solution.

But make no mistake, you opinion is identically appreciated. It's what will help me on the decision making about what will go to where.

Edited May 26, 2019 by Lisias
Somewhat better quoting

[kcs123]

2 hours ago, Lisias said:

I agree, you have some solid arguments.

But I'm also happy with @OPBlue suggestions, and for the ones that doesn't fits on KAX, I'm cooking a solution.

But make no mistake, you opinion is identically appreciated. It's what will help me on the decision making about what will go to where.

By all means, if both of you have time and willpower for new parts, go for it. I do use BD ARmory, from time to time when I'm more in the mood to create aircrafts. And not only modern jets, but also WWI and WWII style aircrafts. Use to like Firespitter parts, but after several kraken attack, I have put those parts on hold. K.R.X. mod is good too, but also slightly behind from latest KSP. Airplane Plus have some good looking parts for aestetics, but also unsuported for FAR, so have to use them on separate install without FAR or again risk to put unsuported part on craft and invite kraken.

Somehow, I always looked at KAX as civilian line of aircrafts, for aircraft transporters or small scout planes as well as experimental electrical crafts.
So, it might be better idea to create separate part pack, like KAX Extension, or KAX Armory pack or something similar. Such new part pack may fit well with some other BD Armory weapon packs that are no longer in development. Such new mod could even get more attention as separate mod than if it is included with KAX.

[Lisias]

1 hour ago, kcs123 said:

Use to like Firespitter parts, but after several kraken attack, 

Yeah, I helped to fix some of them, one or two borked again, and I reserved my next holidays to tackle Firespitter bugs again. I'm still hopping to being able to fix the Landing Gear issues, by the way.

Of course, any successful fix will be upstreamed to RoverDude (it's the reason I made a fork - to test things for some time,  months sometimes, minimizing the risk of pushing Kraken poo into mainstream!).

 

1 hour ago, kcs123 said:

Airplane Plus have some good looking parts for aestetics, but also unsuported for FAR, so have to use them on separate install without FAR or again risk to put unsuported part on craft and invite kraken.

Well… Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa   

FAR is not completely supported - the KAX patches for KAX, to tell you the true, "unFAR" some parts - so the support is partial. And even the support we have is somewhat minimal - it relies heavily on someone else to do the job and then second guess it - I don't even run FAR myself, so I will rely on contributions to keep this alive.

 

1 hour ago, kcs123 said:

Somehow, I always looked at KAX as civilian line of aircrafts, for aircraft transporters or small scout planes as well as experimental electrical crafts.

Me too.  

 

1 hour ago, kcs123 said:

So, it might be better idea to create separate part pack, like KAX Extension, or KAX Armory pack or something similar. Such new part pack may fit well with some other BD Armory weapon packs that are no longer in development. Such new mod could even get more attention as separate mod than if it is included with KAX.

Well, the current plan is to keep on KAX parts to make the airplanes, and then shove the militarized parts and patches to companion's Add'Ons in which KAX would be a hard dependency. I'm currently inclined to even use ModulePartVariants to keep the raw amount of parts to a minimum (pending I implementing this thing on TweakScale first - FireSpitter and TweakScale will be the single most important Add'Ons for KAX, and I expect not using them would impact it negatively).

So expect some military cockpits (too), but "demilitarized" for civilian use. They will be "militarized" on the companion packs.

[kcs123]

15 hours ago, Lisias said:

FAR is not completely supported - the KAX patches for KAX, to tell you the true, "unFAR" some parts - so the support is partial. And even the support we have is somewhat minimal - it relies heavily on someone else to do the job and then second guess it - I don't even run FAR myself, so I will rely on contributions to keep this alive.

I can only tell on that topic how much I can recall from the past and ongoing issues that some other mods have. KAX, unlike APP mod, does not contain wings and controled aerodynamic surfaces. So, as long it stay that way, to create only new cockpits, fuselages and similar parts, you are mostly covered in that regard.
Wings and similar aerodynamic parts need additional info in MM module for FAR. More about it can be found on FAR github page, how to calculate wing surface area with help of blender and put proper values in MM patch, so everything could work properly.

There is good "hack" to discover unsuported parts trough additional MM patch:

That would not fix unsuported part, but it will let user know if he have some unsuported part installed.

Another possible issue (I think it is solved for KAX long time ago) is collider from transformed "blured" propelers. In games it is necessary to fake a lot of things. One of those is spining propeler. Once engine start and propleler spin up, actual stationary mesh is replaced with another spinning, "blured" mesh part that is actualy static mesh that only gives ilusion of spining propeler.

So, why that collider matter at all ? Well, reason is that FAR use colliders to detect boundaries of fuselages and such trough voxelization process. I think it is solved for KAX engines some time ago, by adding additional MM patch or something similar for those. Anyhow, issue is similar as invisible collider used by Near Future Tehnologies gravitational engines. It is described how it can be solved in this post:

How it is represented in game, if it is not supported properly ? Well, if it is not "told" to FAR to exclude some collider from voxelization process, it will be calculated as any other fuselage part and it would cause more drag forces than it should be from spining propeler. It would not be calculated as another magical "wing" with drag and lift coefficients due to lack of info for wing surfaces, but it would act as any other body (fuselages and such) of similar shape and size to calculate drag and lift trough voxelization process.

That being sain, I have only encountered issue with some APP parts (that were not wings) and FAR when drag and lift was not properly calculated on craft (some NaNs were involved). That was several KSP, FAR and APP versions ago, I haven't checked them lately to see if those still cause issue or not.

So, when comes to propeler engine support for FAR, it comes to properly recognize colliders that should not be voxelized and create proper MM patch for it, that should not be too difficult, even I might be able to do it if I know proper module names.

15 hours ago, Lisias said:

So expect some military cockpits (too), but "demilitarized" for civilian use. They will be "militarized" on the companion packs.

Well, I could find proper use of "demilitarized" cockpits (meaning no guns and such) and even for "bomb bay" if it is created in such way that could be used as cargo bay too, for transporting various things. Incoming DLC as well as IR Next mod offer much more possible uses from it.

[OPBlue]

On 5/27/2019 at 10:44 AM, kcs123 said:

Well, I could find proper use of "demilitarized" cockpits (meaning no guns and such) and even for "bomb bay" if it is created in such way that could be used as cargo bay too, for transporting various things.

I have asked Lisias about cargo bays and tail ramps and he said its in the roadmap. Also I understand why people wouldn't want weapons on their planes, possibly because there's no real need for weapons in KSP, unless you wanna fire a missile to de-orbit a useless satellite.

[kcs123]

10 minutes ago, OPBlue said:

I have asked Lisias about cargo bays and tail ramps and he said its in the roadmap. Also I understand why people wouldn't want weapons on their planes, possibly because there's no real need for weapons in KSP, unless you wanna fire a missile to de-orbit a useless satellite.

Personaly, I found that BD Armory is nuisance when you play space exploration career game. For example, physics range extender have conflicts with some other mod that I use and it cause unwanted slowdowns and kraken invitation. And also, true, you have no need to use any kind of weapon at all in KSP. If you exclude (un)wanted explosions from own craft failures and piloting mistakes, violence of any kind does not realy fit within spirit of KSP.

I use BD ARmory, from time to time, though, on separate install. Mostly just for aestetic reasons to put weapons on aircrafts. I didn't found much fun to watch AI fights, I rather want to get involved in more active way to play game. Sure, you can do some dogfights against AI, there is even some contract pack for BD Armory, but I just didn't found it to be fun for me to play with it.

It is not that I'm against violence in computer games, I played a lot of such games (heck, even moded one) where glore, violence, ubusive language, alchohol, drugs and other adult stuff is core of gameplay. I just found it that it does not fit in game like KSP is.

[OPBlue]

Yeah, I am the type of person to set up strategic situations in KSP and watch them play out, or preform raids on bases using KK. And sometimes add a story element to it like an actual war. But with some implications weapons could be useful in KSP. if there was a mod that makes meteors destructible, you could just send a craft with a missile on it and blast it to smithereens, but for some that would ruin the complicated part of a rendezvous with an asteroid and re-directing it. And yeah, weapons would glitch the game, for example if a nuke was dropped and it caused a shockwave in KSP it would make the crafts shake and fly into blackness at breakneck speeds.

[kcs123]

Yep, whole gameplay mechanic in KSP is not suited well for usage of weapons. BD Armory authors have to put a lot of effort to make that mod at least somewhat playable.
Maybe if SQUAD was have weapons in mind in stock game, it could be possible to make it better,  but I doubt that it would happen.

[Eskandare]

@Lisias Thanks for picking this up. I've been swamped with my move, KSR 1.0, and making KSO work for 1.X.X (whatever version I get it fixed for.)

[Lisias]

KAX is working for KSP 1.7.1 + Making History + Breaking Ground 

Edited May 31, 2019 by Lisias
Uh. Forget about...

[kcs123]

That was fast. I haven't even downloaded new KSP release and DLC yet .

[OPBlue]

I am currently working on the b-36 cockpit but I realized I flipped the glass canopy and made the stubby side backwards and the longer side forwards so I gotta scrap it and redo it completely. But now I learned to make the design perfect before binding the shapes, oops on my part. 

I will post pictures of the mesh once I get home, I am currently with my niece and nephew that live an hour away.

[VoidCosmos]

On 12/3/2018 at 3:41 AM, Lisias said:

with Making History and Ground Breaking)  

@Lisias it is Breaking Ground not Ground Breaking!!!

[OPBlue]

Sorry I didn't get the pictures uploaded when I said I would, I've had a busy week, But here they are!

https://imgur.com/a/ZSW8n5j

I figured I should get the pictures uploaded before I go to bed.

[Daniel Prates]

What software is that? Blender?

[kcs123]

12 hours ago, OPBlue said:

Sorry I didn't get the pictures uploaded when I said I would, I've had a busy week, But here they are!

https://imgur.com/a/ZSW8n5j

I figured I should get the pictures uploaded before I go to bed.

Not bad at all at first sight. It is reasonably good looking, but is is not good 3D mesh model when you look more closerly facing topology. You will soon encountered issues when you need to create UV maps, normal maps and create textures. When comes to Blender I'm noob too, but I learned thing or two and it is not easy task to merge cylinder and sphere in Blender and to maintain proper facing topology.

Now, that was a bit off-topic, but to elaborate it better, send me PM or open new topic in more apropriate place. I really don't want to discourage you, but rather to give you some tips to do it even better.

[OPBlue]

On 6/6/2019 at 6:47 AM, Daniel Prates said:

What software is that? Blender?

Yup

[Ruedii]

Thanks for revising this.

While Airplane Plus has filled most of the needs left by the absence of this pack, I love having it back!

[Lisias]

On 6/10/2019 at 10:02 PM, Ruedii said:

While Airplane Plus has filled most of the needs left by the absence of this pack, I love having it back!

Me too. Had Airplane Plus fixed that terribly overpowered engines (the small props has more power than an F18 engine!)? It's a long time since I used A+ engines, as I found KAX more reliable on this!

Edited June 13, 2019 by Lisias
tyops. Who would guess it? :D

[Wren]

Appears the link to SpaceDock is broke and sends you to a can't be found page.

[Lisias]

15 hours ago, Wren said:

Appears the link to SpaceDock is broke and sends you to a can't be found page.

Fixed. Thanks for the heads up.

I don't understand what is happening. By using https on the link, we get that weird red page. So I put http instead - that so redirects to a https URL equal to the link that was there before.

go figure it out. Krakens.

Edited June 14, 2019 by Lisias
Kraken damned Autocorrectors